


kitty collectors

by kocuria



Series: Industrial Grade Softness Stucky [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), ねこあつめ | Neko Atsume: Kitty Collector
Genre: Artist Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes Has Cats, Cats, Characters Playing Neko Atsume, Competition, Everybody Lives, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, Fix-It, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Friends to Lovers, Herding Cats, Industrial grade softness, M/M, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Neko Atsume References, POV Outsider, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Scientist Shuri (Marvel), Team Bonding, Team Fluff, Team as Family, Teambuilding, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Tsum Tsums, Video & Computer Games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 14:28:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20761862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kocuria/pseuds/kocuria
Summary: It all starts when Sam looks over Bucky's shoulder to see why he's smiling - Steve's in the room with them, reading a book, so it's safe to assume it's not some private conversation between the two - and sees a screen full of cartoon kitties. They appear to be lazing about in a virtual garden strewn with toys, boxes and pillows.Sam squints. One of the cats seems to be wearing a cowboy hat.Huh.An utterly self-indulgent drabble about Avengers & Co playing Neko Atsume. That's it, that's the story. I regret nothing.





	kitty collectors

**Author's Note:**

> The views of the characters absolutely reflect the author's opinions. I can't recommend this game enough, honestly :)  
The fic was 100% inspired by [this awesome fanart.](https://xxxxxx6x.tumblr.com/post/137692430274/still-very-cold-today-need-some-cats-for-warm)  
  
And for visual reference, this is what a nice garden full of kitties looks like:  
  
  
  
Find me on [Tumblr](https://kocuria.tumblr.com/) or [Twitter!](https://twitter.com/kocuria)  


It all starts when Sam looks over Bucky's shoulder to see why he's smiling - Steve's in the room with them, reading a book, so it's safe to assume it's not some private conversation between the two - and sees a screen full of cartoon kitties. They appear to be lazing about in a virtual garden strewn with toys, boxes and pillows.

Sam squints. One of the cats seems to be wearing a cowboy hat.

Huh.

"It's soothing," Bucky says, shrugging, then goes back to shopping for a new cat hammock.

"Shuri tried to get us to play some sort of farming game with her, but the whole _if you're 15 minutes late your crops will wither and die_ aspect was kind of a turn off," Steve supplies when Sam looks at him for some sort of explanation. Trying to get Bucky to elaborate is like pulling teeth sometimes.

"Um, why does a literal _princess_, not to mention the unquestionable Science Queen, play _farming games_?" Sam asks.

"She doesn't, not anymore," Steve grins. "They've been having this unofficial contest for a week now, trying to see who can lure more cats into their garden."

"She's getting desperate," Bucky adds with relish.

"... over a cat collecting game?" Sam clarifies.

"I caught her trying to snatch Bucky's phone yesterday -" Steve starts giggling "- they both promised not to look for shortcuts online, and not to use any AIs for data analysis. Bucky's a few cats ahead and she probably hoped to find some hints-"

Bucky snorts derisively. "Yeah, like that's not cheating."

"-but she saw me looking and pretended to just be picking up Bucky's sweatshirt from the sofa," Steve finishes, looking altogether too gleeful for an esteemed leader of the biggest group of superheroes on the planet.

What follows is inevitable, really.

They're in the quinjet a few days later, Clint and Nat, Carol, Steve, Bucky and Sam. There's a quiet ping and Carol stops mid-sentence to whip her phone out, murmuring something about having to set out fresh food. There's the unmistakable tinny sound of truly horrendous game music.

Bucky looks over her shoulder discerningly. "Oh, the setup with the heater is efficient, that's a good idea," he says and takes out his own phone.

"Wait, you too?" Sam feels like he's missing out on something.

Carol and Bucky both look up, then Carol answers slowly, "Well, of course? It's _cats_?" and they get back to their murmured conversation.

Natasha uncoils from where she was curled up in the co-pilot's seat and comes over. "Cats?"

Carol and Bucky proceed to first show, then help Nat install the game on her phone. She instantly ignores their advice and buys the most expensive kind of food and toys, then crows over her phone for the rest of the flight.

After that, it's like watching an epidemic in real time. Natasha drags the cat collecting virus over to the US Compound and soon Sam finds himself invited to a group chat with almost twenty other people. He doesn't actually install the game on his own phone - but he keeps watching the conversation, the screenshots and advice interspersed with occasional heckling when somebody manages to spot a particularly rare cat.

There's a lot of discussion about butts sticking out of things. It's far more enjoyable than it sounds, really.

Things get quite competitive - how could they not, with all the superhero personalities thrown in the mix - with Pepper starting an unofficial ranking. Bucky's firmly in the lead, followed closely by Shuri and, of course, Natasha. The situation devolves into an all-out race between the three of them, and others seem content to let them have it out, quietly splitting into three supporting camps. Sam's quite sure there's a betting pool going on; most people put their money on Nat, whose late start didn't stop her almost immediately catching up with Shuri and Bucky.

Sam actually brings the topic back to Steve, worried. "Isn't this a bit... much? With people divided like that? Over a game?"

Steve smiles serenely. "Have you seen how many posts there are on that chat every day? It's the most I've seen some of them talk, ever. Mantis, with her insane analysis of which cats usually appear at what time? Korg leading the Bucky cheerleading squad? Yeah, they're bickering, but they're also getting to know each other. The next time a threat hits, they'll trust each other more. Not to mention it's just plain nice, god knows most of us are in desperate need of normal human interaction."

Then Christmas comes and Sam sees what Steve meant. Half the gifts in the Secret Santa pool are cat-related, the most coveted being the hand-made plushies that Carol tracked down online. Thanks to some coaching from his sister's kids, Sam knows that the strange pill-shaped things are called tsum tsums and they're supposed to be stacked for maximum effect.

The Avengers & Co don't stack their tsum tsums. They cuddle them aggressively, resulting in stray plushies being found in the oddest of places - the top of the fridge (Clint's), behind the ferns in the corner of the room (Groot's) or next to the sink in the bathroom (that one remains unclaimed; it's collectively decided that it will just stay there and keep judgmentally staring at the bathroom's occupants. It becomes weirdly comforting once you get used to it.)

Nobody's surprised when Natasha wins the race; when asked about it, she just smirks triumphantly and says nothing. Shuri gripes about statistics and game mechanics and how it shouldn't be possible to get ahead of her and Bucky, them having started so much earlier, but makes good on her promise to provide the prize.

There's a box labeled with the game's logo under the tree on Christmas morning. Nat, ever the drama queen, waits for everybody to finish unpacking their presents to make sure she gets the room's full attention. She unpacks it, revealing a small grey dome-shaped gizmo that just about fits in her hand, and looks inquiringly at Shuri, who motions for her to put the thing on the floor and push the silver button on the side.

The area around Nat is suddenly full of holographic cats, and she laughs in delight. "You've hacked my phone! This is _my_ garden." She smiles widely, the expression transforming her whole face and making her look like a giddy teenager, then immediately starts fiddling with the controls projected on the floor next to the dome and checking just how interactive the simulation is. Shuri flops down on the floor next to her and provides running commentary.

Bucky looks wistful, sitting on the sofa near the windows, until Steve sits next to him and shyly puts a box gift-wrapped in white and red star patterned paper in his lap. Sam really doesn't mean to intrude, but he can't keep his curiosity at bay when Bucky lights up brighter than the (truly impressive) Christmas tree that dominates the room. Sam drifts over to the back of the supersoldiers' sofa and peeks over Bucky's shoulder to see...

A sketchbook?

They all know Steve's style by now, so it's easy to identify that the ink-over-watercolor pictures were made by him. Sam watches Bucky flip the pages reverently, each showing one of the cats - and he knows enough to recognize that all the little paintings are based on real snapshots taken from the game.

There's what looks like over fifty vignettes in the book - when did Steve even find the time to make all of those? - each with a small, carefully handwritten note at the bottom. Sam knows it's not his place to snoop into what those say, but he sees Bucky run his fingers carefully over one of the inscriptions, then beam at Steve with very wet eyes.

That's Sam's cue to leave. He goes back to Natasha, who's still on the floor, reorganizing her garden now that she has so much more space in it, and definitely doesn't watch as Bucky ends up practically in Steve's lap, snuggled in a blanket and still paging through the sketchbook. Steve murmurs something in his ear every time they get to a new picture and for once looks completely relaxed, the worry lines that have been omnipresent on his face recently gone like they were never there.

**Author's Note:**

> For even _more_ visual reference, this is what I imagine Steve's style to be, simple color splashes accentuated with ink:  
  
  
He kind of seems like a "few strokes, maximum effect" kinda guy to me.  
Image comes from [this tutorial.](https://bydawnnicole.com/easy-watercolor-flowers/)  
  
Let me know what you think! 🙃  
  
  



End file.
